A federal judge in California has ruled that state’s death penalty takes so long to be carried out it breaks the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling could have an impact on cases in Missouri.

Washington University Professor Peter Joy

The judge ruled that delays of 25 years or more for appeals and the rarely carrying out of executions by California mean that state’s death penalty has become arbitrary and pointless.

Washington University Law Professor Peter Joy says the ruling could come up in Missouri cases.

“Any lawyer representing somebody on death row who’s been on death row for a lengthy period of time should raise this argument now because there is this decision out there,” says Joy.

About 40 percent of California’s death row inmates have been there more than 19 years. Three Missouri inmates have been awaiting execution for 25 years, and about 22 percent of condemned Missouri inmates have been waiting 19 years or more.

Not all the delays cited by the judge stem from appeals.

Joy says also noted were, “delays [related to] the system itself, and have nothing to do with the person filing a lot of appeals.”

“Out in California,” says Joy, “There’s a much lengthier time before the court finds someone to appoint as a lawyer to represent people that have been convicted in their appeals and post-conviction relief. There isn’t that lengthy a time here in Missouri but there are still issues with the way the process works that take a long time.”

The issue could be raised by attorneys for Michael Shane Worthington, who Missouri is scheduled to execute August 6 and who has been awaiting execution for 15 years.

Missouri is not going it alone in challenging the State of California’s egg law.

Attorney General Chris Koster has announced that five states have joined in his suit against California alleging that it is unconstitutionally trying to regulate farming practice outside its borders. Those states are Nebraska, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Iowa.

With Missouri, those five states produce more than 20-billion eggs per year, 10-percent of which are sold to consumers in California.

California voters in 2008 passed Proposition 2 that, beginning next year, would regulate the size of the enclosures that house egg-laying hens. To avoid a potential competitive advantage to that state’s own egg producers, the California State Assembly passed a bill requiring producers in other states to comply with that law in order to sell eggs in California.

The six states’ suit asks the federal court to rule that California’s legislation violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. Koster says that clause prohibits any state from enacting legislation that regulates conduct wholly outside its borders, protects its own citizens from out-of-state competition, or places undue burdens on interstate commerce.

In a statement Koster says he welcomes those five states joining the effort.

“This case is not just about farming practices,” Koster says. “At stake is whether elected officials in one state may regulate the practices of another state’s citizens, who cannot vote them out of office.”